Encoded Stories

Part of that is a Story Code I’ve developed (and I’m
still developing, in that philosophical, mental gymnastics way) for
Prose and Prosody. I got the idea, funnily enough, from
Capes- and its mention of the “Comics Code” that was
common in the Silver Age of
American Comics. It is basically a set of
boundaries and rules for writing stories which agree with me and my
brand of fiction.

Following it has, thus far, helped me to stay true to
some messages I want my work to convey. As an added benefit, it has
gotten me past some of the more abstract parts of
pre-writing without too much thought: I’ve already
decided on this or that, thanks to the Code, and instead
I just need to define it in the context of this specific story. But, I
have notcommitted to it 100% (at least for the
second, softer, half). Doing so would stunt my ability to push
boundaries, which is something I like to do on
occasion.

Anyway, I thought I would elucidate a few of the points from the
Code in greater detail here.

And people have imperfections: Moles, skin tags,
freckles, dimples, freckles, mottling, stretchmarks,
scars, ticks, habits, accents, prejudices, issues,
histories, affectations… These are the very things that
make us human, and they can be shown in a character
without compromising their worth.

It’s memorable to me for a few reasons (A big one being it was the
first movie I snuck into during a date, story for
another time) but the important one here is the
moral presented at the climax of the story:

“Not everyone can become a great artist; But a great artist
can come from anywhere”. - Anton Ego, Ratatouille (2007)

A good book that defies common tropes rather obliquely
(and that I am currently reading) is “Fire Logic“ by
Laurie J Marks. I’ll talk more about that in
another post, but I wanted to recommend it here anyway, since a lot
of my reasoning right now will come from my
reading that book.

You being a boy doesn’t mean You like sports or
beer or violence. You being a girl
doesn’t mean You like crafts or clothes or
wine. You being young doesn’t mean You want acceptance
or thrills or handouts. You being old doesn’t mean You are wise or
polite or out of touch. You living on a space station
doesn’t mean You have any interest in space any more than someone
living on Earth has in interest in the Earth.

And a man and a woman are working together on something or hanging
out doesn’t mean they are going to fall in love, have sex, or
otherwise
deepen some aspect of their relationship. (This
one gets on my nerves a lot).

I actually have noticed I build my Pathfinder characters with
this whole idea in mind, too (Kind of
anti-power-gaming). I had a Fighter who was geared
towards disabling, a Witch who was built on Constitution, a Bard
who didn’t use spells or his sword nearly as much as his Feats,
Items and Tricks… A lot of my concepts were defied
tropey ideas about what a character should do or be able
to do in a situation.

Of course, some of my best concepts didn’t, too… Which is why
this is a Soft Rule.

Every Aspect of Life is Beautiful, but Don’t Stop and Stare.

This is perhaps the one I feel I’ve represented the worst on
that page, and the one which made me want to do this
in the first place.

That said, even talking about it now is difficult for me… Which I
attribute to the overarching issue of
repression in modern media. More on that in another
post. But, I digress.

People change clothes. Sleep naked. Take baths. Use
toilets. Some have breasts, others don’t. Most
have nipples. People have sex. Fight. Bump into each
other. Hit each other. Many people menstruate regularly. Some get
pregnant. Some give birth. Some wish they could but can’t. Some
wish they couldn’t but can.

Some people are plump. Skinny. Muscular. Rail-thin. Some have
bigger butts, chests, penises, bellies, noses, ears, chins. Some
have smaller ones. Some have smooth skin. Loose skin. Rough
skin. Some are hairy, some are not.

In other words, people are people. And those moments of
humanity represented above: Being nude, using the
bathroom, having sex, rough housing, seeing ourselves in passing
glimpses where the mask of ‘decency’ falls for but a
moment… Those are real. Part of the experience.

And I do not feel like they should be absent from a fictional
character’s life.

That said, focusing too much on one of these things, especially
for no other reason than the fact that it is happening, is not
something that should be in my work. There is a difference between
acknowledging and including the real and human parts of life and
dwelling on them. Obsessing about any single part of something is
(at best) boring or (at worst) vulgar and obscene.

In short: I don’t want to clean up my characters. They are real (if
exceptional) fictional people, who live real
fictional lives. And removing those parts of their
lives that might upset some people because of their existence is
not something I am willing to do.

The Story Code is still very much a work in progress,
and is subject to change at my own whim and fancy. It exists, not only
to help me in writing, but as a quick set of agreements my readers
should understand about my work. I hope I have defined them a bit
clearer here. What do You think?